


Purl Two Together

by Drac



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drac/pseuds/Drac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily learns to knit, and designs hideous sweaters for friends and family. Emily should perhaps not knit ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purl Two Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kryptic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kryptic/gifts).



It starts off, innocently enough, with Corvo coming back to the Hound Pits with a sackful of wool.

'Corvo! You were supposed to be scavenging for food, not looting needlecraft stores! People have to go back there once the city gets back on its feet, you know.'

At least he has the self-respect to almost look ashamed – 'Callista, I respect your point, but firstly, I forgot, and secondly, I bet Emily would love to knit.' she sighs balefully, 'also, I wasn't looting. The shop-owner was dead.'

This earns him a stony glare.

'… I killed the shop-owner.'

She lifts the sack – it's very heavy.

'It was an accident, Callista! He frightened me!'

'Thank you Corvo,' she says, pointedly, and heads up to Emily's tower.

There is a lot of yarn, spools and spools of bright colours, a selection of fine needles. To Corvo's credit, Emily is excited by it, but she doesn't know how to knit and neither does Callista. - knitting isn't suitable for a lady of her breeding, it's for washerwomen with young children, that's what Callista's grandmother used to tell her. Callista's very good at needlepoint.

Emily keeps bouncing on her heels, chanting – 'Teach me how to knit, teach me how to knit -' but Callista can't even successfully _cast on_ – she makes a huge knot after about six attempts, mutters something about the needles being poor quality and clicks back toward the servants' quarters.

-

Lydia gives her a long look, 'of course I know how to knit. Socks, sweaters, whatever.'

Cecelia smiles shyly from her bed – 'I've got some patterns if you want,' - and Wallace, over by the window, has to chime in, 'I hope you're not teaching the Empress to _knit_.'

'She wants to, Wallace.'

'It'll be good for her,' Lydia says, 'my brothers used to bounce up the walls like her too, before I taught them.'

Wallace huffs loudly, but doesn't say anything for at least three minutes, until Lydia is doing it all wrong, you should teach her to knit the cast on, Void's sake, woman, are you _trying_ to teach her sloppiness? Callista thinks that perhaps she's chosen the wrong tutors.

-

Emily is... she's almost preternaturally good at knitting. At the basics of knitting, at least, the knit and the purl and the knit together, she never drops a stitch, never adds one she doesn't want, but her technique leaves a lot to be desired, Callista thinks. She's not sure, because as far as she can see, her Empress manages swift work of turning yarn into a knot into a fabric, but Lydia says things like, 'what's the point if she doesn't learn cable,' sideways to Cecelia and she can see Wallace's fingers _itch_ to snatch the needles from her hands. In the evening, Cecelia knocks politely on the tower door, clutching a sheaf of patterns, and Emily is very excited, abandoning the neat red square, Tyvian snowflake stripe down the middle.

'These are exactly what I wanted, Callista, look!' Cecelia makes a hasty exit as Emily spreads the patterns in front of her, examining the careful inked pictures of the finished products - 'This one has anchors on it, Callista! Admiral Havelock would _love_ that.'

Callista murmurs in agreement though she's not sure the Admiral would like anything less than Emily's crown.

'What do you think his favourite colour is?'

That shocks her, a little, 'The Admiral?'

'Yes. I think blue, do you think blue? I think blue.' Emily searches her collection of wools and produces a fine navy one, 'I think he'd like this. I like this. He'll have to like it, I'm the Empress.'

'… Yes, your majesty.'

'What size do you think the Ad -'

'Large.'

'Hmm,' Emily says, delicately dragging the tip of her finger over the directions for her anchor-patterned sweater, 'okay,' and with that she's off, and barely stops clicking away until she goes to bed.

When Callista awakes, Emily is casting off, proud smile on her face. The jumper is... rather smaller than she was expecting.

'I hope you slept, Emily.'

She doesn't answer, shaking the sweater out in front of her - 'I suppose I should make one for the High Overseer and Treavor, now.'

'Lord Pendleton,' Callista admonishes gently, but Emily shakes her head firmly, as though she's missing a huge distinction -

'No, Lord Pendleton was a naked man who smelt like cigars and wine - Treavor wears clothes.'

-

When Emily has finished two new sweaters by the evening (she hasn't yet worked out that the recommended yarns are recommended for a reason, using all the wrong weights and all the wrong needles, but her knitting itself is good), Callista is deeply disturbed – it would be stupid to pretend she hasn't seen the strange, supernatural things that Corvo can do, flitting away through the courtyard or running much too fast through corridors, smiling and swigging elixir, materialising in the bar in the evenings to Havelock's frustrated glare, Pendleton's drunken giggle, Martin's harsh whisper of 'Witchcraft!'

'Have you been... sharing things with Emily?' she asks, then cringes, terrified.

She's caught Corvo in the taproom with a mouthful of pilfered apricot tartlet, and he swings his sword in a haphazard arc toward her.

'Nyaaah, Callista! You mustn't scare me like that!'

'Scare you!? Why have you even got that in the pub?'

He holds up his hands in a placating gesture that is kind of ruined by the fact that he's still holding the sword - 'it's a precaution.'

'It's dangerous. Fold it up, at least.'

'Eugh,' he says, flicking it around in his hand in the most ridiculously showy fashion, 'fine, what did you want?' he shoves the remainder of the tartlet into his mouth messily, brushing crumbs on his trousers.

'Emily is... very quick at knitting.'

'That's good!'

'No, she's... Corvo, I know that you can do strange things, I mean, no-one's that quick,' her eyes flicker to the ugly mark on his hand, 'I need to know if you've taught her something -'

'- no, no, absolutely not, I'd never – I have to protect her! Do you think I'm so reckless, I -'

'I can't be sure. You killed a man for _yarn_.'

'It was an _accident_!'

At the bar, Emily is presenting her knitted gifts to the loyalists, teeth bared in a disarming grin. In the Admiral's hands, the sweater looks very small indeed.

'You have to wear them. I'm the Empress!'

Not needing to be told twice, Pendleton starts pulling it over his head bashfully -

'Not over your coat, what are you, a heathen?'

'Certainly not, your majesty.'

Emily carefully collects up their coats, folds them and puts them on a table at a booth. When she turns back around she claps and smiles.

Martin almost looks respectable, with his little white collar and meticulous repeating Abbey sigil, white and black and gold. He tugs at the neck and does a little bow and Callista is terribly proud of Emily in that moment, at least until she looks to his left.

Callista is not entirely sure what the yarn Treavor Pendleton's sweater is made out of could possibly be for, by the way he wears it it looks heavy and thick, easily twice the number of stitches it should have across and down. Emily doesn't make tension squares.

It ends around his knees, and the wrists continually slip down over his hands, attempts to salvage one ruins the other and a muscle is ticking over Emily's brow, but luckily for him, she has other places to unload her ire.

Havelock is stuck.

He's got one arm through one sleeve, at least, but it barely stretches to his elbow and the other is a completely abortive attempt, one hand flapping uselessly by his face.

'… help.'

Emily is making a noise like a kettle. Pendleton backs away, shakes one sleeve over his hand, grabs the nearest bottle and gets out of the room as stealthily as possible, which is to say that he trips over a stool and falls up the stairs.

'Wear it properly.' Emily's voice is steely with the hint of frustrated tears, her little hands balling into fists, 'I'm your _Empress_.'

Callista is - Void, she doesn't know what to do here, with the threat of _execution_ wavering in a little girl's voice, and then Corvo appears behind the Admiral, gives the waist of the jumper a swift tug, freeing his trapped arm, and wraps Emily in a hug.

'Come on, you,' he says, and then they're both gone, leaving a vacuum that pulls sweat from pores and nervous laughs from throats.

Martin says, 'Mine's quite nice.'

-

'I'm so angry,' Emily says, swinging her legs over the edge of her tower as Corvo strokes her hand with his thumb, 'they were supposed to like my gifts. They _need_ to. I _command_ it.'

Humming non-committally, Corvo remembers – 'Callista said you made three sweaters in less than two days.'

'I made four,' she says.

'Four?'

'I -' and she does cry now, sudden, childish sobs, '- I made one for Mother.'

'Oh,' Corvo says, pulling her close.

'It was my best one,' Emily continues, pressing hot tears into his shoulder, 'I miss her so much.'

'… Me too.'

-

Two days later, when the dust has settled and Emily has thrown her needles into the river, Callista silently passes him a soft package, wrapped in a hessian sack. There's a sweater in there, an ugly thing, pale blue and a hundred little swans, every colour of the rainbow.

It fits like a glove.

**Author's Note:**

> Oop yeah this Corvo is based on my first playthrough Corvo, gentle, clueless high chaos soul that he was. I think I hit the ball a bit wide on this prompt and I'm sososososososososo sorry for just about everything in here lmao


End file.
